


tea and sympathy

by gracieminabox



Series: horizons universe [14]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Mild Language, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-14
Updated: 2018-01-14
Packaged: 2019-03-04 19:34:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13371654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gracieminabox/pseuds/gracieminabox
Summary: Chris and Phil take a sick day.





	tea and sympathy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TooNerdyToHandle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TooNerdyToHandle/gifts).



> For my dear friend Kenzie, who broke one thousand followers on Tumblr last night. I promised you a present, so here it is!

It was 0720. Phil had been up for nearly an hour; he was freshly showered and caffeinated and making breakfast. Somewhere between making fresh coffee and frying up some fake bacon _(shh - don’t tell Chris)_ , it occurred to him.

_Chris should’ve gotten up by now._

In fact, the idea that Chris was still asleep while Phil was up was unusual. Neither of them relished waking up early, but it was easier for Chris to do than Phil, unless Phil was on call - which he currently wasn’t - so Chris’ oversleeping was a pretty atypical event. He left the stove for a moment and craned his neck out of the kitchen, hoping to hear his partner coming to…but nothing. No shower running, no sleepy mumbling, no rustling around in the sheets, even.

Phil frowned. Killing the burner and putting the fake bacon strips on a paper towel to drain, he poured a cup of coffee, stirred in Chris’ customary seven disgusting tablespoons of sugar, and went back to the bedroom. Chris was still sound asleep, nearly on his belly, face planted in Phil’s side of the bed. He had the covers pulled up to his neck.

Phil smiled fondly at the sight of Chris’ body all curled up in bed, snoring very softly, the hood of the hoodie he’d fallen asleep in bunched up at the nape of his neck. He set the coffee down on the nightstand, sat on the bed next to Chris, and started stroking his hair. “Chriiissyyy…” he singsonged softly. “Time to get up, love.”

“Mmrph,” Chris answered from under his blankets, not opening his eyes.

“C’mon, Chris,” Phil said. “You’re giving two midterms today and then you’ve got an admiralty meeting at 1600. Gotta get up and get ready.”

Chris responded with a tiny _“pfft”_ of air from between his lips.

“I have coffee,” Phil teased. “And I made bacon and eggs. If you get up like a good little admiral, I might even be persuaded to make some - ”

Phil stopped quickly. He’d been brushing a tendril out of Chris’ eyes, and in so doing he’d run his fingers along Chris’ forehead. It was _much_ too warm.

“Chris?” Phil said, putting his hand more fully on Chris’ forehead. “Hey. Are you sick?”

Chris let out the most _pathetic_ sounding little whimper Phil had ever heard - this heartbreaking noise - and Phil suddenly noticed the unusually pale skin and the bright red nose on his partner.

“Oh, sweetie,” he sighed, retrieving his spare tricorder from his nightstand. “Were you feeling this bad last night? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Msrry,” Chris mumbled.

Phil gave him a quick scan, then swore softly under his breath. His poor Christopher had the flu. A perfectly regular Earth-origin flu, not a xenoflu - thank the stars - but a gnarly flu nevertheless. Complete with the fever and aches and pains and nausea and fatigue and general unpleasantness that comes with it.

“Fucking Nero,” Phil muttered, cursing for the trillionth time the man who had - among countless other terrible things - damaged Chris’ kidneys so much with that stupid slug as to make him ineligible for the most effective flu vaccine. Sighing, Phil leaned in, kissed Chris’ superheated forehead, and commed them both out sick for the day. (Three cheers for being the head of the women’s health unit, for it meant Medical basically let him do whatever he wanted now!) He tucked Chris in a little bit more, then leaned closer and wrapped his arms around the shivering frame in their bed.

“Hey, Sickie,” he said softly. “You want some tea or something?”

“Nuh-uh,” Chris managed.

“Poor love,” Phil whispered. “I’m gonna go get you some meds.” He popped out to the living room, grabbed his medkit from the foyer, and detoured to the kitchen, getting himself a cup of coffee (cream, no sugar, like a _normal person)_ and the plate of now-drained bacon.

Chris didn’t even raise his head at the smell of freshly-fried bacon. He was _definitely_ sick.

“All right, you,” Phil said softly, loading some hypos. “Something for fever and something for pain.” Chris winced and whined as Phil depressed the hypos into his skin. Phil just smiled. “You big baby,” he murmured affectionately, tucking the covers back up around Chris’ neck. “You queasy?”

“Nuh-uh,” Chris eked out.

“You hungry at all?”

“Jus’ sleepy,” Chris mumbled, reaching the fingers of one hand out from under the covers and wiggling them. Phil grabbed them and squeezed.

“Go back to sleep, then,” he said softly. “I’ll be here. Okay?”

“Mmm,” Chris answered. “Love you.”

Phil smiled, then popped a piece of bacon in his mouth. “Love you too, sweet.”

~

“C’mon, Chris,” Phil implored. “One more spoonful and then I’ll leave you alone.”

_“Philllll,”_ Chris whined in a voice wholly unbecoming a sixty-one-year-old Starfleet admiral and widely-accepted hardass. “My stomach’s gonna stage a real ugly revolt if I try to make it accept anything more.”

“If it does, I’ve seen worse,” Phil said, not blinking. “C’mon, Chris. You need calories and fluids. Open.”

Chris whimpered like a child, but obediently opened his mouth and accepted the spoonful of veggie noodle soup.

“That’s my boy,” Phil praised, kissing Chris’ cheek.

_“Ugh,”_ Chris moaned dramatically. “I think I’m about to be revisited by all my internal organs.”

“Nothing I haven’t seen before,” Phil said, setting the bowl to the side, popping the last spoonful in his mouth.

“What are you _doing?!”_ Chris hissed. “You’re sharing spoons with me? When I’m in this condition? You wanna die too?”

Phil just smirked at him. “You must be feeling better; your Drama Queen side is back out.”

“I just don’t want you to get my cooties.”

“You think there’s any _possible_ way I don’t _already_ have all your cooties?”

Chris didn’t have a good answer for that.

“Besides, I’ve been vaccinated,” Phil said, reaching for his tricorder. “We’re all good. And hey, so are you - your fever’s down a whole degree!”

Chris waved weak finger guns in the air, face still miserable.

“All right,” Phil said, tugging Chris closer to him. “What’s on TV?”

“It’s 1800 hours on a Friday night,” Chris mumbled. “Just news.”

Phil rolled his eyes, picking up their remote. “We can do better than that.”

They wound up settling on a rerun of a show they’d marathoned at the Academy. They’d seen the episode a million times and could quote the dialogue word for word, but like veggie noodle soup, it was easily palatable when feeling like garbage. Chris tugged the hood up on his hoodie and curled into Phil, pillowing his head on Phil’s chest, and Phil squeezed his shoulder.

Ten minutes in, Chris was snoring lightly again.

~

Sometime thereafter, Phil dozed off. When he woke up, there was an episode on from the following season, and Chris was looking up at him with big blue eyes. He had some color in his cheeks again and wasn’t so sweaty.

“Hi, handsome,” Phil said, voice gravelly with sleep. “You feeling better?”

Chris smiled. “I’ve got a good doctor.”


End file.
